Deadline: 1 July 2019
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is currently inviting community-based archives in the United States and its territories to submit proposals to fund one of the following areas of need:
- Operational support for the organization, including general support for staff, space, and utilities.
- Collections care, including storage, cataloging, description, and preservation.
- Programming and outreach activities, including collecting new materials, and exhibitions, publications, or other uses of the collections.
The 2019 Call for Proposals (CFP) is now open and directed towards community-based archives that represent and serve communities marginalized due to oppression based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, class, sexuality, religion, ability, and/or geographic location. For the purposes of this CFP, community-based archives must demonstrate that community members actively participate in their archival processes, making key decisions about what to collect and how.
The Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies. To this end, they support exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work.
Funding Information
Awards would range from $25,000 to $100,000, for grants of up to two years in length. Grant terms would begin on January 1, 2020 and would need to be completed by December 31, 2021. In the first round, up to $500,000 would be awarded. The Foundation would then convene the awardees in person and online over the course of the grant term to build a cohort of archives that would help and learn from each other.
Eligibility Criteria
- Organizations that respond to this CFP must:
- Be located within the United States or its territories.
- Have 501(c)(3) public charity status, or have an organization with 501(c)(3) public charity status serving as a fiscal sponsor.
- Be able to demonstrate autonomy as well as participation from the community being served and represented.
- Have an annual operating budget of no more than $1 million.
- Be able to provide a recent Form 990 and documentation about the organization’s annual operating budget for the previous two years.
- Organizations can request grant funding for up to 50% of their annual budget per annum, for up to two years, with a total proposed budget of no less than $25,000 and no more than $100,000. The amount of the request should not compromise the organization’s ability to satisfy the public support test.
How to Apply
Proposals should be approximately 1500 words in length and should be submitted in a Word document via email at the address given on the website.
For more information, please visit https://mellon.org/programs/scholarly-communications/call-for-proposals-community-based-archives/